Veterans, Combat Wounded Push Back On Mitt Romney 'Dependents' Video

Bobby Henline isn't dependent on government either, even though he received free medical care after he was catastrophically burned in a bomb blast in Iraq and -- like other severely wounded combat veterans -- received a tax-free $100,000 insurance payout from Uncle Sam.

Few Americans receive as much from government as the combat wounded. Their military medical care, from treatment on the dusty battlefield to the exquisitely meticulous surgery and rehabilitation care, is given on a damn-the-cost basis. The Department of Veterans Affairs insurance program pays out a maximum of $100,000 for severe wounds, in addition to disability payments and other assistance.

But that view is out of whack with the reality of many of the severely wounded, and other veterans and their families.

Although Romney later asserted that he was not referring to veterans or the military, it seems wildly inaccurate to suggest, as he did in a video recorded at a fundraiser in May, that those who take from the government believe they are "victims" and "take no personal responsibility for their lives" because they pay no income taxes.

True, the 68,000 U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan today pay no taxes on their monthly pay (for officers, combat-zone pay is tax-exempt up to $7,834 per month). Troops at war also pay no taxes on the Family Separation Pay ($250 a month) and Imminent Danger Pay ($225 a month) they receive while in the war zone.

Romney's remarks "made me upset," said Tyler Fultz, 27, who served with the Air Force in Iraq in 2009 and 2010 and now lives in Fort Worth, Texas. "He's dismissing half the population as being dependent on the government and for essentially being lazy. I do not consider myself one of those. I think that when he made those comments he didn't realize the groups of people he was including in that 47 percent and veterans are one of those groups."

The notion that taking government handouts breeds sloth and dependence is belied by Bobby Henline. Like others who have narrowly escaped death, he has attacked his post-war life with energy and zeal, as if not to waste a second. He has struggled to overcome his severe burns, the loss of his left hand and other devastating injuries and has become a stand-up comic, working to raise awareness of burn victims.

"There are some I guess who just sit around," said Henline, the only one of five paratroopers who survived the flaming wreckage after their Humvee hit an IED in Iraq in 2007. Financially, given his disability payments, he could afford not to work for the rest of his life, Henline told The Huffington Post. "But the guys we lost out there, I felt like if I sat around and felt sorry for myself, they would have died in vain. It's important to keep going, for them, for my family.

"I've learned that no matter how bad life gets, you can continue on. I've learned that I can help others, inspire them to live their lives to the fullest -- even if you are disfigured."

That same ethic inspires many military families who, despite the support they receive from the government, hardly become craven dependents.

Six years ago, Luana Schneider learned in a phone call that her son Scott Stephenson, a paratrooper, had been blown up in a flaming bomb blast in Iraq and lay dying of massive wounds and extensive burns. Schneider's previous life as an interior decorator and mother of six evaporated. As doctors fought to save her son's life, she became fixed on a single goal: if he lived, she would dedicate her life to his care.

Miraculously, Stephenson lived. Schneider learned to change his dressings, an hours-long ordeal each day. For four years she managed his multiple medications, soothed him through dozens of surgeries. Wiped his bottom. Held him naked in the shower, gently soaping his scarred body.

Six years after he was critically wounded, Stephenson is doing well. He's walking on his prosthetic leg, and coping with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury. He got his $100,000 insurance payment, meant to cover a lifetime of being unemployable. And he gets Social Security and $200 a month in combat disability payments from the VA.

And Schneider remains his primary, full-time caregiver, a role recently recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs as an actual job. With prodding from Congress, the VA has begun training -- and paying -- caregivers.

In February, Schneider began receiving $1,600 a month from the VA, a salary based on a 40-hour work week which, she says, is ridiculous given that she spends easily twice that time caring for her son.

Does that make her hapless ward of the state? Hardly. "I would fight tooth and nail to the death to make sure my son is covered by the government," she told The Huffington Post. "He cannot function and that is not his fault."

"I am a bitch and that is my child and you owe my child respect. I gave him to the Army in the best physical condition of his life, and they gave him back to me in pieces. You will take care of him or I will know why and I will do something about it and I will be rude."

The VA doesn't disagree that veterans have earned their benefits, even if they don't pay taxes. This year veterans will get $76.3 billion in entitlement payments, including disability compensation and GI bill education assistance -- all tax-free.

More than 8.5 million veterans currently get health care through the VA -- an untaxed benefit -- and 3.5 million vets are receiving untaxed disability payments, according to VA budget documents. The VA is paying to house homeless veterans at a cost of $1.3 billion. Veterans are currently receiving mental health benefits worth $6.2 billion.

"I don't think anyone would consider that wasteful spending or that anyone is leeching off the system," said Paul Rieckhoff, who served in Iraq as an infantry platoon leader before founding the Iraq Afghanistan Veterans of America, a nonpartisan organization to support veterans.

Thanks to the GI bill, for instance, over 700,000 troops who served in Iraq or Afghanistan have gotten tax-free grants to help pay for tuition and books and go back to school, and thousands are entering college this month, he said. Far from creating a culture of relying on government hand-outs, "It's a really good return for the American taxpayers," he said.

"I don't know too many vets who are living in Beverly Hills on their VA benefits."

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Conservatives React To Leaked Romney Video

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"That's not the way I view the world. As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in. Too many people today who want to work are being forced into public assistance for lack of jobs," Scott said in an email to The Hill.

"He was obviously inarticulate in making this point," Ryan said during an interview with a Nevada television station.

"This could be the opportunity for Romney, and for that campaign, to finally take the gloves off and take the fear off and just start explaining conservatism, start explaining liberty to people and what it means," Limbaugh said Tuesday. "And explain that they don't need to be in that 47 percent. There's no reason for them, for everybody to be -- essentially having given up on their future in this country. There's no reason for it. This is, to me, such an opportunity to espouse conservatism."

"Mitt Romney probably could have better explained himself. I think he was a little clumsy in doing this," West said on Fox News.

"Sure, there are some government programs that cultivate patterns of dependency in some people. I'd put federal disability payments and unemployment insurance in this category. But, as a description of America today, Romney's comment is a country-club fantasy. It's what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other. It reinforces every negative view people have about Romney," Brooks wrote. "He's running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?"

"It remains important for the country that Romney wins in November (unless he chooses to step down and we get the Ryan-Rubio ticket we deserve!). But that shouldn't blind us to the fact that Romney's comments, like those of Obama four years ago, are stupid and arrogant," Kristol wrote.

"He has to not apologize, because we've seen enough apologizing already, and he cannot apologize," Trump said on NBC News. "What he said is probably what he means."
Trump also said that Romney's words were "inartfully stated."

"The Romney campaign should double down on what he said. They should own it. The trouble for the left and media (but I repeat myself) is that most Americans agree with Mitt Romney. Most Americans consider themselves part of the 53% and it is not a winning proposition for Barack Obama to convince Americans they are less than they think they are when most Americans already recognize he has made them less than they were," Erickson wrote in a blog post on RedState.com.

"[Romney] believes that every American has got to have skin in the game...he doesn't want what the president wants," Christie said on Fox News, adding that Romney wants to "empower individuals...and that's what he's really talking about."

"The idea that you're declaring, 'Well, the race is over. Mitt Romney doesn't care about people,'" Ingraham said on Fox News. "Meanwhile, you have a president whose policies have undermined the 47 percent. ... I'm very pumped up about this. I think it's ridiculous that people are seizing on it and that we're even giving all that much airtime to it, frankly."

"I disagree with Governor Romney's insinuation that 47% of Americans believe they are victims who must depend on the government for their care. I know that the vast majority of those who rely on government are not in that situation because they want to be. People today are struggling because the government has failed to keep America competitive, failed to support job creators, and failed to get our economy back on track," McMahon said in a statement.

"To read many of the reactions on Twitter, you'd think Mother Jones had just found video of Mitt Romney strangling a hooker with her own pantyhose," Goldberg wrote. "Indeed, many people understand what Romney is getting at here, even if he's saying it badly."